By Lee Dresselhaus / L’Observateur / March 31, 1999

So…..I just got fired by my doctor. No, not as an employee. As a patient. Iam the only person in the history of persons ever to get fired by his attending physician. My doctor, we’ll call him Dr. I Have A Medical DegreeAnd You Don’t, Stupid, apparently became offended that I had the nerve to protest because my appointment, which was for 9 a.m., became null andvoid once they had me in their office. They then placed me on the forgetlist and promptly forgot me. After two hours of waiting, I approached hisnurse, the evil Frau Blucher, and asked her just what the problem was. Shelooked at me like I was something stuck to the bottom of her shoe and told me that the doctor was out this morning and would return shortly.

I was a little confused by this, and asked her why they had made appointments for a room full of people when the doctor wasn’t in. I mean,his waiting room (now there’s an appropriate name if I ever heard one) looked like the immigration room at Ellis Island, only sicker. And older.She just looked at me and told me basically that she had no control over the doctor’s activities and asked me to sit myself back down, pronto.

In American society the one class of people who truly consider themselves to be royalty are doctors. And for some reason, we, the people, let them.We will sit right back down in that overbooked waiting room and wait as long as they tell us to before we see that doctor, no matter what time your appointment really was. After all, it’s not like you have anything elseto do in your meaningless little life. If any other business were to treatyou that way, you would walk out and take your money to their competition. I’ll bet that most of you have at least one horror story aboutgrowing old in some waiting room. And then they call your name. Hooray!At last! But this, too, is but a trick to keep you from organizing the other peasants into a rioting mob, complete with torches and hounds, and demanding better service. Because, does this mean you will at last begranted an audience with the doctor? No. You are escorted to a privatewaiting room where, after brief attention by some nurse, you get to, guess what? WAIT SOME MORE! I think they isolated me so I wouldn’t stir up the rest of the peasants. Then, at last, The Great Man himself comes, spendsthree minutes with you, and leaves. And you find yourself wondering justhow they got so behind if all the exams are that short. (He actually hadsandals with no socks on when he finally saw me.)If your local restaurant gave you that degree of bad service, you would protest to the management and then never darken their door again.

Someone should remind these guys that, yes, they have medical degrees and that you respect that, but either you or your insurance company are paying them very well for what is essentially a paid service, not a favor from them to you. And that my time is valuable, too. I expressed thesethoughts to Frau Blucher, and several days later received a registered letter saying essentially this: Dear Stupid Little Man, Go away and don’t come back.

signed, Dr. I Have A Medical Degree And You Don’t So There, Stupid, and his evilnurse, Frau Blucher Well! I was just amazed and flabbergasted. Why, I’ll show them, I thought,I’ll just tell…..I’ll tell…..hmmmm (fingers drumming on table top)….. I’lljust do absolutely nothing because there is absolutely nothing that can be done. I had been banished from Frau Blucher’s Magic Kingdom and there wasabsolutely no one to protest to. The medical royalty is absolutely at thetop of the food chain.

Small disclaimer…..I know that not all doctors out there are like that. Thatthere are some who are thoughtful and kind. Okay….. I felt I had to say thatbefore I had loyal peasants storming my house.

In conclusion, I would like to address the portion of the Medical Royalty who DO treat people with the callous sort of disregard I have described above. Get over yourselves. Before you got that degree you were one of us,remember? A member of the Great Unwashed. One of the facelessmultitude who now pay your salary. And I bet you still have MorningBreath, the Heartbreak of Psoriasis, and the occasional pimple, just like the rest of us.

Oops, gotta go. I think I hear loyal peasants at my door.

Lee Dresselhaus is a regular columnist for L’Observateur

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